


Le Beau et Le Bête

by layersofsilence, littleblackfox



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, POV Alternating, Shrunkyclunks, and steve rogers meets him, don't @ me about the incorrect pronoun, in which bucky barnes is confined to a castle on a mountainside, language is a construct i do what i want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 04:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15162251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/layersofsilence/pseuds/layersofsilence, https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox
Summary: It is the harsh stroke of a brush that first stirs his consciousness, and the fast smearing of acrylic which does the slow, laborious work of raising him from that vague place which lay beyond description - a place of shapes and dreams and hazy unreality. He is made and shaped into a painting, brought to a nebulous forth, directed to seep into stiffened cotton with intent and paint and the slow deliberate drip of crimson that characterises a quick, shallow cut: a blood sacrifice.And so: everyone in the small town is strangely reluctant to talk about whatever it was that lay on the mountainside.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> layers: pls don't @ me about the incorrect particle in the title!!! language is a construct and i do what i want. also, as fox says, "it's fanfic, not French literature."  
> MANY thanks to the aforementioned fox for your gorgeous, inspiring art - i'm so glad i could pinch hit it, and that i could get to know you better over this bang ❤ thanks also to chiyume for her insanely fast beta at very late notice, and to the mods for being so very lovely & supportive throughout this process.
> 
> Littleblackfox: thanks to Trish and Alby for feedback and concrit. And also making me sign up for the bang in the first place XD  
> Thank you also to Jillian for being a terrible influence and fellow member of the Long Haired Bucky in a Red Henley Appreciation Society.  
> Extra loud and enthusiastic thanks to the AMAZING Layers for saving this art last minute and writing the most glorious fic. I love you and will send you all the crochet aus :HUGS:

It is the harsh stroke of a brush that first stirs his consciousness, and the fast smearing of acrylic which does the slow, laborious work of raising him from that vague place which lay beyond description - a place of shapes and dreams and hazy unreality. He is made and shaped into a painting, brought to a nebulous forth, directed to seep into stiffened cotton with intent and paint and the slow deliberate drip of crimson that characterises a quick, shallow cut: a blood sacrifice.

He is brushed into canvas, illustrated into an approximation of consciousness, fast but thorough. Colours are mixed and muted to create just the right shade of red on him, just the right gleam of silver off an arm from a light source he doesn’t see. One fast swoop of a brush is enough to have an eyelid take place, open and curious; several slower applications of paint has his world tinting blue before the colour fades and what he can only take to be his surroundings begin to filter through his awareness: a dim, dank room, its only light source a lantern glowing softly orange in the corner. A pallet and paint and brushes are lying alternately on the floor and on a low table, and moving within it all a short, stooped man with eyes almost as lifeless as the painting he’s working on. The most vigorous thing he does is throw shadows into the wall every time he moves around the lantern.

The painter must feel the gaze on him, and turns to stare at his painting; the painting stares back, and for all that the moment feels important, feels charged with potential, nothing happens. The painter’s mouth starts to move and then stops as he shakes his head. There is a sad sort of resignation in his eyes as he continues his work. The painting starts to wonder whether he will be stuck like this, trapped and immobile, until the end of time, or at least the end of the canvas. He starts to wonder whether such an existence would be tolerable, and does not have to wonder terribly long.

Long stretches of time bleed into themselves, mixing as the paint on the canvas is mixed, and the painting watches with its one eye as the painter continues his work. Features come in strange order: a nose which the painting almost wishes didn’t have to be painted—damp stone and mold are not pleasant odours—then a mouth, then another eye and brows, small horns which are promptly covered by hair, and then, finally, ears. The first thing that the painting hears is a dank dripping noise, little high-pitched plops that feel revolutionary every time they occur. The second thing he hears is his painter’s voice: “There we are,” the painter says, with a pat to the side of the canvas that the painting can still feel in reverberations long after that hand has taken up its brush again. “Not to worry. You will be out of there, soon enough.” He sounds unhappy at the prospect. The painting has a mouth, but cannot use it to reply: the paint that makes it up has already been absorbed by the fabric it lies on, has stiffened into place and remains steadfastly immovable.

The painter sets down his brushes and then leaves. When he returns, it’s with stooped shoulders and a small black box littered with buttons; when he presses one, the box starts to speak, and it seems like what comes out of it is lies more often than not.

“They didn’t,” the painter murmurs, after most allegations. Or, “They were wrong.” Or, “That’s not how that happened.”

Every now and again, the painter’s foot slips and hits the radio with unerring accuracy. His face remains utterly expressionless, always, but something about his posture eases when he can no longer hear that impassioned poisonous voice, and sometimes he will take the time to explain in short, curt sentences how the radio is wrong: how the world wars came about and were ended, how the inception of a painting’s consciousness is the most formative time for their views, why HYDRA has splintered into small, desperate factions that bear no resemblance to the glorious monster the radio is so fond of idolising.

The little thing never seems to know when to quit, though: it crackles back to life and valiantly continues to speechmake, words and views that have the painter turning down his mouth and glaring and correcting it in mutters and grumbles. One day he abandons his painting to spend hours fiddling with the little demon box until another station comes through, one that plays radio shows and music and narrates stories, infinitely better than what they are meant to be listening to.

After that, the little cell is filled with words that bounce from wall to wall, and the painter no longer finds it necessary to talk to his painting. Sometimes he lays down his brushes and leaves the room in flickering lamplight; sometimes he lays down the brushes and lays down himself with his back to the lamp, motionless and nearly as senseless as the painting he toils over. The painting has nothing better to do than watch, when he is allowed to. Sometimes fabric will be drawn over him, white that rapidly transmutes to darkness as it ceases to let any light in. The painter lets the radio do the talking for both of them, now, and music is played, people discuss topical issues, stories are narrated, and the painting listens and learns about everything he hears about: the history of things, language and words, music and tone, guns and violence, superheroes. And always, the lantern burns, orange in the painting’s field of vision. Time continues to pass, now in a smeary, information-filled haze, until the radio is turned off, and then it doesn’t.

“I’m so very sorry,” are the next words the painter says to his painting, in the ringing silence left behind by the click of a button. “Today is the day.” The painting still cannot speak.

A second man comes into the room not much later. The painter flinches away from him minutely, even as he does nothing more than inspect the painting and smile. It is the first time the painting has seen a smile, and yet there is no joy in the way these thin lips twist upwards, only cold calculation.

“Good,” the inspector says, then, and leans forward to address the painting in a voice that is slower and louder than it had been before, as though being constructed out of acrylic makes one stupid. “You are to be drawn out of the painting and into our world,” he says. “You will have the privilege of being HYDRA’s greatest Asset, our Winter Soldier, our Fist, the one who will shape the century and the next—”

They are the same words the radio had uttered so fervently before it’d been tuned into a different channel, and it makes the painting uneasy. He hadn’t liked those sentiments then, and for all that he hasn’t heard them since he’d been given years, he doesn’t particularly like them now. The inspector doesn’t care, though. He keeps smiling that cold smile, and leans forward to add his own final touch in sloppy, flat work: two dull sharpnesses that protrude from the painting’s scalp, layering over the horns he already has hidden in his hair.

If he could frown, the painting thinks, he absolutely would, so perhaps it is a good thing he is bound in place by the cotton he’s been painted onto and the blood behind it, anchoring everything together. He can’t see the horns but he already knows that they do not go with the rest of his look at all; that they would be hard-pressed to go with any look, flat and toneless as they are. He’d even go so far as to say that they looked terrible on him, and that he distinctly does not appreciate their last-minute addition.

In any case, he does not have the capacity to say any of these things. And to add insult to injury, the painting is covered and—for the first time—moved. It’s an unpleasant sensation, he finds: he has a vague awareness of the two fingers hooked underneath the edge of the canvas, but he is far more aware of the way that he _swings_ , precarious and alarming, each step causing his canvas to shake unhappily. It is a great relief when he is finally set down once again.

It is slightly less of a relief to have his cover taken off and see a tight circle of wide-eyed men staring at him like they want to devour him. Like he is the solution to their every problem. He can see the same coldness in their eyes as he had in the gaze of the inspector, and he thinks he would shudder if he could.

“This won’t take very long,” one of the men says. He steps back and gestures to a younger man with a much worse hairstyle and beads of sweat on his forehead.

It does not, in fact, take very long; the man is at least right about that. It does not even hurt very much, as the painting feared it might. It feels like tickling, to be separated painstakingly from the canvas he was painted onto; feels like a stretch that can only be satisfying after spending so long being so very still and stationary.

He tumbles onto the ground and just lays there for a second, feeling his body beat strangely, wondering if this is what it is like to be three-dimensional, to be alive. He feels full of tingles, as though this vessel needs a solid shaking before it can achieve any kind of proper functionality.

“—the _fuck_?” is the first thing he hears once his ears have ceased attempting to create sound instead of absorbing it. It’s a promising start to his life with three dimensions and movement, he thinks, and that thought makes him realise that he can move. He’s almost afraid to try, but eventually he wiggles his toes, curls his fingers, wants to shout with joy. It feels like nothing he’s ever felt before. Freeing, is the word, maybe. Loose.

“Look at him,” another voice says, so agitated that it is mangling some of the words. A hand reaches forward to shake the painting’s left arm, which is clad in a loose silver glove that’s slipping down to reveal an arm much like his other one. “Zat vas meant to be a metal arm! Vhere is his metal arm! And red blood, Fischer! He was meant to be _drhipping_ in red blood! Vhat is this! A, a, a _jugendlicher_ , a _kapuzenjacke_ —”

“A hoodie,” another voice says tiredly.

“ _A rhed hoodie is not fearsome blood_!” the angry man shouts, so loudly and vigorously that his face turns a shade of red that threatens an imminent aneurysm. The painting winces and looks down at his offending red hoodie. He likes it, he decides immediately, mostly out of spite. It has a neat little centre-pocket he can stick his hands into, so he does so.

“And these...horns,” someone else tries.

“Zey are _antlers_!” the angry man shouts, getting worked up all over again. “Vhat part of _devil’s horns_ did you not under _ztand_ , you _bumbling idiot_? Why did we even _let you into our bazse_ if _this_ is vhat you are going to prhoduce?”

“Don’t look at me,” the painter—Fischer—protests. “That was some of the most sloppy transformation work I’ve seen in my entire life -”

“Don’t blame me!” the sweaty young man squawks. “I’m new to this! I didn’t even want to do this!”

“You were happy with the picture,” Fischer reminds the angry man, the most forceful the painting has ever seen him. “It’s not my fault if there are errors in translation, that is due to the _magic_ —”

“Hey,” the magician tries, in a feeble attempt to stand up for himself. The relative boldness of his act is immediately undermined by the way he flinches back from the glares around him.

“They _were_ devil’s horns in the painting,” someone else concedes, and the angry man shrieks loudly and stalks away. The door slams very loudly behind him, which is unpleasant, but his following shouts are mostly muffled, which makes it worth it.

The painting reaches up to touch the horns - antlers - that are giving these men so much grief, and to his delight they’re not the flat, monotone addition of the inspector: they’ve grown and branched out, almost literally, stretching wide and up in multiple points. He has to muffle a smile, relieved; he likes these much better than the original devil’s horns.

“Alright,” the ringleader says, tired and pinching his nose. “This is clearly not the Fist of HYDRA.”

“He could be,” Fischer says. “You could train him—”

“This is _clearly not the Fist of HYDRA_ ,” the ringleader says. “Put it _back_ , Muller.”

“I don’t want to go back,” the painting says. His voice is hoarse and kind of wet, but he’s fairly sure that he gets his point across. The circle of men gape at him, like it hadn’t even occurred to them that he could speak, or have opinions. He frowns at them, which seems to confuse them even more.

Except for his painter, who only says, “Don’t talk. Your insides will be paint for a little while.”

“My _insides_?” the painting squawks, alarmed, and promptly coughs up a glob of paint. A confused noise best described as, “Aaghbl?” emerges from his mouth.

“I didn’t have time to paint them properly,” Fischer says, looking the painting up and down in, the painting thinks, an unnecessarily critical manner. “So they’re just going to have to take form on their own. You should be safe to talk in about a day.”

The painting opens his mouth to make another confused noise, but Fischer glares, and he clamps his teeth together.

“Are you going to put him back or not—?”

“He can’t,” Fischer says, as the magician—Muller, apparently—opens and closes his mouth in a parody of useful conversation. “It’s not possible.”

The man demanding scoffs. “We did it to Schmidt when he got too annoying—”

“Schmidt wasn’t originally a painting.”

“You’re saying paintings can’t be turned back into paintings?” the man asks, disbelieving.

“Yes!” Muller says, and over someone’s incredulous, “ _Why_?” he goes on to show what is possibly the only actual enthusiasm he has displayed so far as he starts to ramble about how this particular property of transfigured things has to do with not only transfiguration but also alchemy and the _nature_ of paint, because, “Humans don’t face this issue, but we _can_ —”

The painting doesn’t get to hear what the magician thinks humans can do, though, because Muller has the sense to trail off once it becomes clear that none of the men around him want to hear about the fundamental laws of transfiguration and alchemy as applied to now-living paintings.

“We’ll just have to get rid of it,” one of the many in the room says, and is greeted with nods of agreement, which the painting does not like at all.

“Hey,” he says warily, and ignores Fischer’s snapped, “Stop _talking_.”

For a long moment, the whole room lies still and silent, everyone waiting for someone else to make the first move. As soon as the painting begins to hope that perhaps this can be solved in a non-aggressive manner, someone in the corner of his vision dives towards him, and the painting can’t help his yelp or the way he turns as fast as he can to face the threat. And he definitely can’t help the way his antlers snag on something as soon as he moves.

Something that yelps and starts swearing in Russian. Suddenly panicked shouts and cocking guns start filling the room, everything pointed at the painting as he tries to shake a panicked, shouting man off his antlers. It is much harder than it sounds, what with the deafening shrieks and desperate wriggling that occurs every time the painting so much as moves.

A loud, “Do something!” rises above the chatter of the other shouts in the room, everything rendered terribly indistinct. The painting takes a step in what he thinks is the direction of the door, the better to start running as soon as he gets this _idiot_ off his head. Light flashes past him, and in his wince to avoid the subsequent spell _another_ man manages to get tangled in his antlers, which absolutely defies belief. It takes a special kind of incompetence to snag oneself on a set of antlers, the painting decides furiously, shaking his head and rapidly developing a headache that spreads down to his neck. And then to _stay_ stuck is something else entirely, surely—

Someone pulls the trigger of their gun and the little metal bullet makes a _squoosh_ sort of noise as it rushes into his arm. Paint drips out of the newly formed hole as the painting fishes the bullet out. It glints dully under its layer of skin-tone paint, and the man who’d shot it lowers his gun, eyes wide. When the painting flings the bullet at him as angrily as he knows how, the man drops his gun and flees for the exit.

Fischer rolls his eyes as everyone left continues to shout, the collective pitch of the room going up by about five notes. “I _told_ you his insides were paint, what on earth did you think bullets were going to do against him—?”

“Put him _back_!” someone bellows, and finally something gives. Something being the cloth that makes up the shirt of the agent on the painting’s right side; it rips, and the man falls to the ground, finally. 

“I _can’t_!” the panicked magician shouts.

“ _Do something_!” about six people yell at once, complete chaos, and the painting thinks he hears snatches of swearing in at least eight languages, too. The magician yells indistinctly, sounding utterly panicked, and sends shockwaves through the floor.

At first the painting thinks that the spell had only had the effect of knocking everyone off their feet, but it soon becomes apparent that hadn’t been the case; their surroundings shift and tilt along with them, and when everyone meets the floor with a groan the motley group finds itself back in the dungeon that the painting has grown so familiar with.

“Fuck, I’m never hiring a magician again,” someone mutters resentfully.

“I’m never _being_ hired again,” Muller snaps back. Someone dives onto the painting to pin him in place, and he makes the mistake of grunting in protest. Fischer shushes him yet again, which is growing increasingly annoying.

Other hands join the ones already on him, and in one chaotic flurry of a moment the painting finds himself pushed into an empty cell, the door slammed shut and held like that, because apparently no one has a key for the lock. The painting spits at the mass of bodies, because they absolutely deserve it, and the voice of Muller rises above the hubbub as he shrieks and starts moaning about how his mum is going to make him wash out the stain by hand.

Fischer reaches through the bars to smack the painting’s head. “ _Don’t_ get rid of your internal paint, _dummkopf_ —”

“Let’s leave him, c’mon, let’s go,” the man behind him says, antsy.

“We can’t let him out into the world,” someone else argues, trying to find a way to keep the door shut. “Can you imagine the repercussions on HYDRA?”

“It can’t be allowed to happen,” the ringleader agrees, and then does a double-take at the way the painting is using his current fairly viscous state to his advantage and squeezing out of the dungeon bars. “Change of plan,” he says, tense and terse as he grabs Muller by the upper arm so hard that the magician squawks in protest. “I hope you’re good with barrier spells.”

Muller perks up, for once. “I’m _great_ at barrier spells!” he says, far too happily for a man currently being frogmarched up the stairs.

“Hey!” the painting yells as his thighs start to creak in protest, and finds himself with yet another mouthful of wet paint.

“Don’t _talk_!” Fischer yells as he herds the rest of the shell-shocked men up the stairs. The painting can take pride in having at least thoroughly ruined their day and their plans to make him a fist of anything. “Swallow that paint _immediately_ ,” Fischer continues sternly, “or you _will_ get anaemia.”

After a brief moment of contemplation, the painting swallows the paint as spitefully as he imagines one can swallow anything. Unfortunately Fischer does not get to see this because he is now out of sight, even his shadow having trailed away in the flickering light. The painting redoubles its efforts to get out of the dungeon, and succeeds marginally - his thighs look like they’re going to cooperate with his effort to redistribute his internal paint - when he’s rudely interrupted by what feels absurdly like an earthquake.

The painting has just enough time to register how much he does not want to die squashed between two dungeon bars when the ground shakes again. The wall of the cell he’s in flings itself out of the stone it’s meant to be anchored in with vaguely suspicious enthusiasm, and the painting smacks his head very solidly against the opposite wall.

The castle shudders yet again as he lurches, swears, and slumps in quick succession, the barred wall having found its way around his waist and impeding his progress in virtually every way possible. The painting needs to get the thing off—he’ll stand up and do it in a second, he’s sure—

~*~

“Hey,” is the next thing he hears. “Hey, buck buck. Buckbuck. Wake up. Hey.”

The painting groans. “Buck buck?” he asks, and then he slaps his hand to his mouth in an attempt to catch any paint that he might cough up. Nothing comes, though; if anything, his throat feels utterly dry and a fairly sore.

“You’re fine to talk,” the voice says. “It’s been a day. You’ve been out for like three days, man! Come on, you need to get up.”

The painting blinks, takes advantage of the fact that his hand is currently in close proximity to his face to rub his eyes. He’s in exactly the same place as he’d been when the base had - shaken, or collapsed, or whatever that had been. Save for the noticeable difference of no longer having iron bars wrapped around him, he could almost think he’d just blinked; it certainly doesn’t look as though the base had suffered even a mild gust of wind.

“Three days?” he asks sceptically. No paint makes an appearance then, either, and that speaks in favour of what the voice had said. “Wait, where are you?”

“Down here, Buck,” the voice says, and there’s a nudge against the painting’s - Buck’s? Is he being called that now? Is he allowed to protest? - ankle. An unusually warm nudge. It’s enough to have the painting hauling himself upright with a groan and much unhappy creaking on his back’s part. When he finally finds himself in the position to look down what he sees is - a decently-sized ceramic teapot leaning against him. It’s blowing little rings of steam out of its spout, and there are bright flowers patterned across its body that seem to move every time the teapot itself does, meandering their way around its circumference. The effect is dizzying, almost hypnotising, and the teapot has to say, “Hey, eyes off my flowers, Buck,” before the painting can blink himself back to reality. The flowers, he notices, scurry round to the back of the teapot, as though they’re shy at the attention. It makes him smile briefly before the teapot’s words set in properly.

“Did you call me Buck?” he asks suspiciously.

“Yeah!” he teapot says. “You know, because the antlers. Like a buck, you know. We made it Bucky for funzies, too. Like a nickname.”

“A buck,” the painting repeats, hating that his brain has already latched on to the noise of Bucky and decided that it is suitable to be internalised as his name.

“A male deer -”

“I know what a buck is -”

“- or, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, y’know, the works,” the teapot continues cheerfully. “You can call me Luis.”

“Why do you get to pick your name?” James frowns, and Luis hops the hop of a smug teapot.

“I’ve been awake for the past three days and you haven’t, that’s why,” he says. “Anyhow, you can pick your name if you want! Gale put forward James as a suggestion, because of some American President something nickname something. He’s an American President nerd.”

Bucky considers this. “I can take James,” he says, pretending to be unaffected and unattached to Bucky.

“Yeah, but we’re all gonna call you Bucky Buck anyway, I hope you realise,” Luis says, ruining the already-weak illusion. “You good to walk? I can show you us.”

“Um,” Bucky says. When he tests his legs he feels about as steady as a newborn deer.

“S’alright, I know just what’ll perk you up,” Luis says cheerfully, and his handle pulls itself off him and reshapes itself into a little cup. He tilts to pour steaming black liquid into it, and then it shuffles forward almost shyly.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, picking it up and peering at the liquid. Then he makes the mistake of taking a sip and almost sprays it back out. “Oh fuck,” he croaks, throat burning and newly formed tastebuds shrieking in protest. “What _is_ it?”

“That’s the finest Guatemalen brew, baby!” Luis says cheerfully, apparently totally undeterred by Bucky’s reaction. “I’m a self-refilling teapot and that is what I choose to fill. It’ll be nice having someone around who has actual tastebuds. You can appreciate the coffee for us all, y’know.”

“Uhhh,” Bucky says uncertainly.

“Your palate will mature! Don’t worry,” Luis says. “Have some more!”

Bucky sips again obediently, and even manages to avoid making a face this time.

“That’s the spirit,” Luis says. “All the delicious coffee, none of the disappointing ethical rights violations! This is an epic win,” he says. “Feel like getting up now?”

“Uhh,” Bucky says again, but since he considers himself fairly at risk of being told to drink more coffee should he _not_ get up, he finds the reserves of strength necessary for his legs to push him up and hold him, as long as he keeps one hand on the wall.

“Awesome! Told you that coffee’d do you good,” Luis says, which is an absolute backfire of Bucky’s plan.

“I don’t think -” he starts, but Luis has already leapt over to the staircase and started bouncing in place. “Not stairs,” he ends up saying, a little pathetically.

“Hey, if I can do it you’ve totally got this,” Luis says. “I’m a teapot, you’ve got every advantage over me.” Bucky walks forwards and, as if to make a point, immediately bangs his antlers against the wall. Luis winces. “Except maybe that one,” he concedes, as Bucky brings a hand up to rub at his neck. “Teapots don’t have antlers.”

“Why are you a teapot?” Bucky finds himself asking as he makes his way up the stairs. The tight turns have him holding his head at an angle so that his antlers don’t hit the walls.

“I don’t know, man,” Luis says. “I’m telling you, though, we’ve had some fun times trying to figure out why we took our shapes. I think I’m a teapot because I’m eminently hospitable and warm. Hard on the outside but a soft liquid-y inside, you get me? Scotty thinks I’m a teapot ‘cause I’m short and round but he is thinking way too inside the box there.”

“Huh,” Bucky manages. “Who’s Scotty?”

“Oh, man, Scotty’s this dope-ass safe. He literally looks right out of some kinda heist movie, like a big black solid box that nobody can move. He leaves _indents_ on the floor when he jumps,” Luis says gleefully. “It’s sick, because he actually cracked safes for a living when he was human. That was the whole reason we got caught by these HYDRA assholes, y’know? None of us really know why he’s a safe, though. He doesn’t have a tough shell and he’s not lockable or anything but maybe it really us just because he cracked a lotta safes in his time. And it’d make sense with me being a huge fan of the life-giving properties of coffee, and all.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky manages.

“Don’t worry, you’ll meet everyone,” Luis says reassuringly. “They can explain magic shit a lot better than I can. Don’t stress, ‘kay?”

“Okay,” Bucky says, and spends the rest of the trip trying to regain something resembling a steady stride without having his hand on a wall at all times, because the walls are either damp stone or dusty stone, and neither of those are pleasant sensations; alternating between them causes so much dust to gather over his hand that it almost forms another glove to match the silver one that’d been painted on him and promptly lost in the melee that came afterwards.

“Here we are!” Luis says, and before Bucky can think up any kind of intelligent response Luis has flung his small teapot self at the door with enough force to make Bucky wince and his ceramic to crunch, but he catches the door handle and swings the thing open, so no criticism can be levelled at him, clearly.

“Luis!” a big black box yells, and rushes over to the door with a great thundering noise, only avoiding trampling over Bucky’s feet by sheer luck.

The room behind the black box is, at first glance, a large and stately affair, gently domineering and finely furnished - a dignified fireplace topped by an ornate mantelpiece takes up most of the far wall, and a tall framed mirror stands stiffly adjacent to it. The bookshelf and dining table should both make the room feel at least somewhat natural, but the way that every single one of the aforementioned items is shifting gently - from side to side, like a human would after standing for an extended length of time - utterly ruins the effect.

Luis jumps up and down on Scotty the safe in a series of rattling cracks, and the quiet chatter that had been filling the room dies down.

“Oh, you’re awake!” someone says. It’s difficult to tell who, because furniture don’t really have mouths.

“So this is our lil crew,” Luis says. “Jim, Dave, Gale, Hope, Hank, and Kurt from left to right.” While Bucky is still trying to figure this out - the table is directly in front of the mantelpiece, would that make him the second name or the third? - Luis decides to try opening up the room with a, “So Buck Buck wanted some explanation -” and the room responds in grand, chaotic style.

“So what we think happened -”

“It was fucking wild -”

“- don’t even want to be here -”

“- my daughter -”

“What we _think happened_ ,” a voice that Bucky is able to localise to the mantelpiece says, loudly enough that everyone else quiets down, some more sullenly that others, “is that the paintings in the base were turned into - well, furniture. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that our consciousnesses were thrown into furniture; we couldn’t find duplicates of ourselves. That is to say, the original versions. Which is to _further_ say that there aren’t any insentient knives left in the castle.”

Bucky stares. “Knives?”

“Hope,” the mantelpiece says tiredly.

“I am all the knives,” a woman’s voice - Hope, presumably? - rings out, smug and unashamed of it. Two wicked-looking blades haul themselves upright from the table in the centre of the room and start sliding against each other; the metallic _shing, shing_ noise echoes through the room, bouncing off stone walls to double and redouble and create a cacophony.

“But not at once,” Luis says to Bucky, in a tone that says he is meant to find this deeply reassuring. Bucky doesn’t, somehow. “She can be two knives at a time, and the rest are just normal knives.”

“Until you touch them,” the mirror grouches, and turns to show several neat, clean knife incisions in its wooden frame.

“I didn’t mean to,” Hope says. “It startles me when you touch a knife I’m not being.”

Bucky stares some more. “And this happened...three days ago?” He’s fairly sure it must have, because he thinks he would have heard somehow if all the knives had been a smug woman. Then again, maybe not. He hadn’t been terribly exposed to the world outside the solitary room he’d been painted in, and he’s not truly in a position to be certain about the reliability of the painter’s radio.

“Yep,” Luis confirms.

“We think it was a wayward spell during your fight with the HYDRA operatives,” the mantelpiece says.

“Which, well done on fucking them up, bro!” Luis exclaims and stomps on the safe in what Bucky only realises about five seconds after the fact is his best impression of applause. “Two of them had to walk through the snow shirtless when they evacuated. It was _great_.”

“Shirtless?”

“Your _antlers_!” Luis exclaims, hopping from side to side in excitement. “It must have been epic as hell to see you actually gore them.” Bucky’s memories tell a distinctly different story of how those two idiots had lost their shirts, but he clamps his mouth shut.

“But you were paintings,” he says instead. “Why? Like me?”

“Nah,” Luis says. “The opposite of you. We _were_ humans, and then we got turned into paintings -”

“Oh, c’mon,” Scott whines, wiggling one of his corners in what is probably the safe equivalent of scuffing the floor with a toe. Sadly, Scott’s toes are much heavier than they look, and the stone underneath him screeches in protest. “Shit,” he mutters, stilling before peering back up at Luis. “Seriously, Luis, it’s so embarrassing -”

“Nah, man, we all make mistakes,” Luis says.

“It’s going to come out anyway,” the mirror points out. “We all know how bad Luis is at keeping secrets.”

“I know he’s an asshole,” Scott mutters, but there isn’t much heat behind it.

“Just tell him,” the table says, tone utterly resigned. Scott doesn’t protest further, but he does wiggle unhappily, the movement causing Luis’s lid to emit some alarming clinking noises.

“Alright, fuck, stop that,” Luis says. “So maybe ten months ago my cousin Ernesto’s friend’s girlfriend Emily works as a housekeeper for this old rich guy, right -”

“Skip the backstory, please,” the knives huff.

“- and _long story short_ ,” Luis says pointedly, “she tells her boyfriend who tells his friend who tells Ernesto that this guy has something worth stealing, so Scotty and Kurt and Dave and I -”

“Who’s Kurt and Dave?”

“Kurt,” the mirror says, wiggling a corner.

“Dave,” the table says, still in that very unhappy tone.

“- _anyway_ , we all head off to steal this thing from this old guy, only it turns out to be, like, a test, and the old guy and his daughter - they’re the fireplace and the knives -”

“I’m a mantelpiece,” the mantelpiece says.

“- they set up Scotty to get himself, like, an ant suit -”

“I was Ant-Man,” Scott says, a weird mix of proud and sulky.

“Yeah, and his first mission as _Ant Man_ went so well that they immediately decided to steal from this weird magic _HYDRA_ cult,” Luis says, in a tone which says a lot about how clever he, personally, thought this plan was. “And because I have a soft and kind heart, Scotty got me to get Kurt and Dave to join the team -”

“We are no longer on speaking terms,” Kurt says to Bucky. The pattern around the edges of his mirror shifts to something darker and more sickly, a nauseating dark green and ugly beige pattern that presumably means something even if Bucky doesn’t have a hope of translating it.

“- and then when we came over here to steal some random-ass cube thing HYDRA caught us, because of _course_ they did,” Luis says. “We actually got lucky, we timed it so we’d be coming into, like, the most skeleton of skeleton facilities, and even though we got caught there wasn’t really anyone around who really felt like killing six people that day. ‘Cause killing six people, that’s like a big step, y’know? Maybe if they’d just been one of us…” He pauses, presumably to contemplate this, and the room, for once, is silent. “Anyway,” he says after a few unsettling seconds, “they _did_ happen to have a magician around, so they paid him to turn us into paintings.”

Bucky winces in sympathy. “I know a bit about being a painting,” he offers, and Luis’s spout goes up and down enthusiastically.

“Fuck yeah, I bet. My joints felt creaky as hell in there, which is the absolute worst because I couldn’t move them.”

“The Ant-Man suit actually worked in the painting,” Scott says. Hank scoffs and mutters something about how it was a matter of course that a suit he made would work even in a painting. “But that didn’t, uh, do much to unfix me from the canvas.” Hank seemingly has no rebuttal for this

“Anyway, there’s a coda to all this, I haven’t forgotten you guys,” Luis says. “So _then_ Scott’s ex-wife’s daughter -”

“ _My_ daughter -!”

“Who is _also_ Scott’s daughter, got worried when her daddy didn’t show up on his visiting weekend, so she convinced her mom to get her boyfriend who’s a cop to do some snooping around on his own time. And Jim was too good at snooping, so he and his partner ended up here, and -” Luis wiggles his spout in a manner which he no doubt believes is illustrative, “- they both got jammed into the painting with us, which was, y’know, kinda awkward. And now Jim’s a bookshelf and Gale’s a dinner platter.”

“I’m just dreading the day Cassie ends up here,” Scott says glumly. “She will, you know. She’s that determined. And then Maggie’s gonna follow her and we’re going to end up in the worst most awkward step family type situation and everything will be terrible.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t felt the need to become a petty criminal again -” the bookshelf - Jim, Bucky remembers - starts, only to be cut off.

“I was being a _superhero_!” Scott squawks indignantly, as much as a safe can squawk.

“And how long have you been here?” Bucky asks Luis lowly as Scott starts to quibble with Jim about the relative lawfulness of thievery versus, as far as Bucky can tell, a different kind of thievery.

“Only a few months,” Luis says. “Maybe? It got kinda hard to tell after a while. The ant suit -”

“- Ant- _Man_ -” Scott takes a break from his fight with Jim to point out before doubling down on his previous argument and taking a few steps towards Jim. It is probably meant to be somewhat intimidating, but it’s hard for a solid black box to emote anything at all.

“- thing was in....summer? And the throwing our consciousnesses into furniture, that was a day ago. But aside from that, time’s gone kinda fuzzy on me, you feel?”

“Sure,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know what season it currently is either, but Scott and Jim’s argument has elevated in pitch, so he says, “I’m just going to have a look around,” even though he probably doesn’t need to justify himself to a teapot.

Luis brightens. “You’re gonna need a guide for that! This place is confusing as hell but I’ve been exploring it for like, a day, and I’m like eighty percent sure that I’ve got the hang of it.”

“Eighty?” Bucky asks as Luis hops into his hands.

“Well, eighty percent of about half the base,” Luis admits. “This place is confusing and I’m just a lil teapot, y’know. Let’s go this way,” he says, and tugs against Bucky’s hands in a way that shouldn’t be physically possible because he has no leverage to pull with.

“Because you know it or you don’t know it?” Bucky asks warily, but follows all the same.

“I wouldn’t steer you wrong,” Luis says, which doesn’t really answer the question.

The base, as Bucky has been thinking of it, turns out to be more of a castle, complete with turrets and towers, filled with old crumbling stone that’s got climbing plants wedged firmly into its cracks and worn places. It’s a little cold and grey, perhaps, but one could describe it as a nice place when one isn’t being attacked by HYDRA denizens inside its walls. Bucky thinks that he would even find it pleasant if he was allowed to leave it - which, he discovers fairly quickly, he isn’t.

“Just - take a step, man,” Luis says, hopping slowly - even his descent is slower than should be possible, Bucky’s just about decided to stop questioning what he can do - over the boundary between stone and grass, as if to show Bucky’s feet how it’s done.

Bucky’s feet, though, remain stubbornly uncooperative. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the castle refuses to cooperate; every time he tries to step outside Bucky’s feet slam into a barrier that refuses to let him past the stone, an invisible wall. Or worse than a wall, even - a wall has weak spots. Bucky’s investigation of the barrier involves hitting, kicking, and an antlered head-butt, and all he gets out of it are a series of deeply unhappy body parts. Luis, for his part, valiantly tries to hold in his sniggers.

“I think you’re like Scotty,” he says finally, once Bucky has given up and sat down in front of the door, just out of reach of the grass. “He can’t get out, either.”

“Oh, now you tell me,” Bucky snaps. Then - “Wait, he can’t?”

“We think it’s a size thing,” Luis says. “Hope can get through as chef’s, paring, serrated, boning, bread, carving, and meat knives, and normal axes, but not spears or machetes. She was kinda pissed about the last one. She actually, like, chopped through an entire wall down in the East Wing to try and tunnel out, but she hit the barrier as soon as the stone was gone. Then she tried to jump off the top tower -”

“ _What_ ,” Bucky chokes.

“- and she just bounced back,” Luis finishes. “So there’s, like, no place anyone can get out unless you’re a small knife or -” He wiggles demonstratively, “-a small teapot.”

“Oh,” Bucky manages. The magician had been asked about that as he’d been taken away: _I hope you’re good at barrier spells_. He should have known earlier what that meant.

Luis hops forward, straddling the space between stone and grass as though it’s effortless. Which it is, for him, Bucky has to remind himself. “You alright, man?” he asks, unexpectedly gentle for all his previous brash, aggressive cheerfulness.

“I guess,” Bucky says. “I just - we’re trapped here.” He kicks once more against the barrier and then looks outwards, out past the ledge that they’re perched on and into the dark shadowy peaks that reach into the starry sky. If he leans as forward as the barrier will let him, he can just make out the dull yellow shine of a small village nestled far below the castle.

Luis stays silent. “Sure,” he says finally, once Bucky has nearly given up on a response. “But, like, I stick around because the last time someone saw me move they tried to smash me into bits, which, y’know, not cool, but also not fun and kind of dangerous for me. At least in here I’ve got my pals and nobody’s trying to hit me with a broom, right? And Hope,” he continues, and Bucky relaxes into the chatter, “she stays because she’s got that thing with Scotty, although I really don’t know how that’s going to progress with her as...a set of knives and him being a safe. I feel like that might put a barrier in their relationship, y’know? Although I’d never say it,” he assures Bucky. “She scares me way too much.”

“Maybe,” Bucky agrees.

“I mean, then again, maybe not,” Luis says. “I totally saw her putting the knives she isn’t currently being inside Scotty’s safe. That could be like...the knife-safe version of sex.”

Bucky contemplates this for a moment. “I don’t think I want to be thinking about that,” he says.

“I mean, neither do I, but it’s in my head now,” Luis says. “Least I can do is pass it on, right?”

Bucky snorts and turns away from the view of the outside world. As Luis hops inside and joins him, Bucky rests his back against the doorway and stares instead at the thorny climbing roses that are making their way up the opposite wall.

“If you’re worrying, don’t,” Luis orders, clambering up onto Bucky’s lap. “Hope and I have already been down into that village to steal stuff. She can be a grappling hook, which is pretty awesome. We’ve already added like seventeen books to the library.”

“You’ve been here for _three days_ ,” Bucky says, slightly incredulous. Luis shuffles.

“We worked out a very efficient system,” he says. Bucky stares, and then he laughs. The noise is rusty and strange, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue if the way that Luis warms up immediately is any indicator. “See?” he says. “We’ll get through this.”


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone in the small town is strangely reluctant to talk about whatever it was that lay on the mountainside.

SHIELD intel said that something was here, that there had to be. A strong, steady magical pulse had been picked up by their surveillance spells, and that meant there was some kind of highly magical presence on the mountainside. When they cast their searching spells, though - nothing. Everything they tried, from Thor’s magic to Natasha’s research to Tony’s technology, just slid past the area like there was nothing there, like it truly was nothing more than a mountainside, which was infuriating because they _knew_ it couldn’t be the case. They were definitely picking up _something_ -

Spells needed to be cast by a magician, but anyone with enough knowledge of the way it worked could step in afterwards and operate it, and Tony had had the idea of rewinding the surveillance spells SHIELD had put in place around the area in question. Steve had happened to be in the room when Tony did the rewinding of the spell’s results, and he could only watch in shock as the spell wound back for - years, really, as it just kept going and going. Steve looked at Tony, and Tony was already shaking his head.

“Never,” he said. “SHIELD never got anything on this location.”

“Call the Avengers,” Steve had ordered tersely, and they’d all sat up and taken notice, because that kind of systematic error in their data meant HYDRA. And to have it had gone on for so _long_ \- HYDRA had had something big to hide there, that much was unmistakable.

Which is how Steve found himself being flown into a tiny city at the base of the mountain with Nat by his side, to ask and finagle at people respectively. Usually, this was a strategy that worked, which was why they used it: Steve would ask outright, under strict instructions to look as freedom-y and justice-y as he could, and if people weren’t affected by his uniform and shield and eyes they’d at least be put off-guard enough that Natasha could get whatever she needed out of them.

This time, though - nothing. Steve would ask: what’s on the mountainside? and everyone would answer: nothing at all; we don’t go there. Some of them look uncomfortable as they say it, eyes going from side to side, weight shifting between feet - one mother gasps and puts her hands over her son’s ears before hurrying away without another word - but Steve can never get them to say any more on the subject. Even Natasha, who patiently takes on the magically glamoured faces and personas of photographer, skier, mountain climber, hiker, and dumb tourist, is finding that everyone advises her away from the mountain and then clams up utterly on the matter.

“There’s something funny about it,” she grumbles to Steve on the third night of their utter disaster of a reconnaissance mission.

“We knew that three days and an eight-hour flight ago,” Steve grumbles back. Both of them are under strict instructions not to go climbing anything until they’ve received some actionable intel on what, exactly, is up there - especially given who they’re likely dealing with - but following through on that particular part of the plan is looking less and less likely with every person they talk to.

It’s their fifth day there when Natasha finally gets back to their base - a tiny room in an even tinier motel that doesn’t get much business thanks to the remote area - with something like triumph on her face instead of her usual carefully maintained neutrality.

“You got something,” Steve says immediately.

“I was in the roof of the pub,” she says, and although Steve rolls his eyes he knows better than to ask why. “There was a table in the middle talking about us.”

“Us?” Steve relents and asks as Natasha slides a sideways look at him.

“Wondering whether they should tell us what they know,” Natasha says. “They didn’t like talking about it - it’s a fairytale to them, always has been, but it keeps them away from the mountain anyway.”

Steve doesn’t ask what ‘it’ is, and Natasha doesn’t make him.

“They think someone’s been living in the mountain,” Natasa says. “Stealing from them, leaving knife marks everywhere.” Steve blinks, baffled. _Knife marks_ , he mouths to himself.

“And they wouldn’t tell us that?” he asks, sceptical. Natasha shrugs one shoulder.

“People don’t like to admit that they believe in fairytales,” she says. “That’s what we were asking them to do.”

“Jesus,” Steve mutters. “You think that’s going to count as actionable intel?”

“Stealing and leaving knife marks everywhere?” Natasha asks. She tilts her head. “Doubt it.”

It’s not even a full day later that Steve is approached by a woman with a suitcase in one hand and a photograph of a family clutched in the other - mother, father, two small children - and tells him that they used to be happy. That this place was small enough that everyone knew everyone, and everyone loved Wanda and Pietro.

“They started coming home with stories of a castle in the mountains,” she says. “We thought they were so precious. That they had such good imaginations, even if they left things out behind their house and swore it was taken by the castle occupants. And then Wanda told us she was going to free the people in the castle, and -” She makes a sad, limp gesture with her hand, still staring down at the photograph. “They have both been missing, since then. For - for a long time, now. Nearly ten years.”

“Oh,” Steve murmurs, looking down at the picture more intently. Wanda has dark hair and dark eyes, and her brother is the opposite, but their smiles look the same. He had not grown up in a small town, but sometimes it’d felt like it, with the fierce pride that specific regions of New York had held amongst themselves. He thinks he might know something about how something so comparatively simple could scar the collective psyche of a small town.

“They were my neighbours,” the woman whispers. Her face is lined and drawn and sad, and Steve feels exactly as big and lumbering and graceless as he is, standing awkwardly amidst all of her emotions.

“Where are they now?” he asks, tapping a finger on the smiling faces of the proud mother and father and making his tone as gentle as he can to try and make up for asking at all. He’s not sure that it works very well.

“Back to the road, for them,” the woman says. “They think they can outrun their grief.” When she smiles it is bitter and unhappy. “Perhaps they are right.” Steve looks again at the suitcase she’s dragging behind her; she follows his gaze but says nothing more.

Steve looks up at the mountainside again. Whatever happened up there - whatever HYDRA did - it can’t have been good, to have made two children disappear. “I’m sorry,” he says, and means it, for asking her to talk about it, for knowing that Natasha is going to chase her for more information no matter where she travels. He offers the photograph back to her, but she shakes her head and backs away.

“You keep it,” she says. “I’ve been looking at it for too long.”

Natasha, as Steve had predicted, hares off after the woman as soon as she wrangles a decent description from Steve, but her plans are somewhat lengthened by the fact that the lady had gone to visit her sister in Spain almost immediately after her conversation with Steve.

Steve knows without consulting the team back in New York that he is meant to remain at base or seek supplementary information from other people now that he has a better starting point. He knows that what they have still isn’t actionable intel because it doesn’t give them any sort of hint as to who is living on the mountainside, but. Well. It’s not like it’s going to surprise Natasha if she comes back to a note on the table instead of him. She knows he doesn’t like waiting around, and he’s done enough of it over the past week.

Besides, the walk up the hillside is - ridiculously easy. It’s as though the place _wants_ him to waltz upwards, it’s so effortless. Somehow, looking at it from below, Steve had expected something much steeper. It’s good, though; he’s doing some more recon, is all, Steve reasons to himself. And it isn’t like he’s not taking precautions, either; he’s suited up and he’s bringing his shield with him.

When he gets to the next plateau, though, he has to stop short. Can’t help the way his feet stumble to a standstill, because there’s a castle _right there_ , tucked innocently into the hillside in front of him like it as all the right in the world to be there, like every scanning spell SHIELD’s sent into the area hadn’t found anything but hillside and snow. Like every satellite image of the place is just wrong, like it’s not a major source of fear in the community below it. Steve takes a step towards the edge of the path, peers downwards to the best of his ability: the village is still in his line of vision, if only just. He and Nat should’ve been able to see this castle from just outside the village, and yet - nothing. He’s sure of it.

Steve turns back to the castle, almost expecting it to have disappeared, but no, it’s still there. Stays there, solid and immovable like the stone that it’s made of. Or appears to be made of. 

Steve takes a hesitant step forward.

He has to remind himself forcefully that SHIELD hadn’t picked up any kind of man-made structure in this area, let alone a castle. That there’d been no warm clusters of living things in this area, because everything seems so normal - the castle and grounds overrun by plants, the crumbling stone, the lack of life in the windows. Spells could be temperamental, of course, especially when they were handled by someone unfamiliar, but not consistently, and they didn’t spend years on end acting up in the exact same way, in the exact same area. Something about this place was not right, could not be right, no matter how innocent it looked.

When he tries the front door, it’s unlocked and swings open easily. Underneath the noise of the movement, he could swear that he hears a muffled gasp and a series of clinks, but he sees nothing when he sticks his head around the opening door. The room is empty, but it still sounds like someone is dropping coins in it, and as Steve steps inside fully he’s fairly sure he can hear a strained voice hissing, “ _Captain America is standing in the foyer_!”

Of course he steps forward and starts to explore, after that. The castle had looked fairly modest from the outside, but it looks to have tunnelled into the rock behind and beneath it for more room, and it’s not long before all Steve can hear are his own footsteps, no matter how much he strains his ears. Whoever the inhabitants of the castle are - and there’s definitely one, probably more - they don’t want to be found.

Steve’s decided that a tactical retreat and passing on this information to Natasha is probably the best course of action here - because he is capable of backing up and realising when he’s not achieving anything, whatever some of his teammates might say - so naturally, as soon as he turns to retrace his steps around the corner he’s just passed, he sees a teapot.

He’s not totally unobservant; the teapot definitely hadn’t been sitting there before, and yet here it is now. Steve hadn’t heard it being placed there, hadn’t even noticed a presence behind him, and that concerns him. He stares at the teapot warily, and the longer he stares, the more the bright flowers on the teapot seem to move, some kind of bizarre optical illusion. Gingerly, Steve reaches out with his shield, half-expecting it to blow up, or try to latch onto his face, or something equally horrible, and pokes it.

The teapot yelps and jumps backwards, lid rattling, wich has Steve scuttling backwards, shield still out in front of him. The thing lands upside down and squirts dark liquid out of its spout, which leads to another shriek and a girl melting into sight right in front of Steve, flapping her hands at the stained front of her skirt and swearing.

“What the fuck?” Steve asks, at the same instant that the teapot hops back upright and starts apologising profusely. “What the...fuck,” he says again, weaker.

“You weren’t supposed to see me,” the girl says nervously, raising her head, and the oddest jolt of recognition runs through Steve.

“You’re Wanda Maximoff,” he says dumbly. Wanda - because Steve sure it’s her, she barely looks like she’s changed since she was that preteen girl in the photograph - flinches and shakes her head. “Who’s keeping you here? How did they trap you?”

“I’m not trapped,” Wanda insists.

“You kinda are,” the teapot says, and neatly jumps onto Wanda’s foot when she tries to kick him.

“I think you can still leave,” she says instead, which, honestly, does nothing to make Steve want to leave. “You should.”

“Why can’t you leave?” Steve asks, not moving an inch. Wanda keeps her mouth shut tight. “I can help -” Steve starts, and then she shrieks, inarticulate and loud.

“What -” a new voice yells, and Steve’s not exactly proud of it, but Wanda’s standing in front of him so all he can hear is the rough shout, and all he can see are horns and ominous-looking shadows on the walls. His fighting instincts kick in, and he grabs Wanda and pulls her behind him in the same smooth movement he uses to build up enough momentum to hurl his shield at the interloper.

It’s a good shot, at least; it hits the intruder in the stomach and sends him tumbling backwards, swearing breathlessly - and colourfully, if the words Steve catches are what he thinks they are. Wanda shoves at Steve’s arm to get to the (horned?) man, and Steve is surprised enough to stumble out of her way. The man in front of him is just that - a man, slightly shorter than him, who just happens to have horns - antlers? - protruding from his head.

“You’re an asshole,” the man on the floor informs Steve, still wheezing, glaring out of very bright, very blue eyes. Steve winces.

“Sorry?” he offers. The man just scowls at him harder.

“Apology not accepted,” he snaps, and turns to Wanda. “You alright?”

“Fine,” Wanda says.

“Good,” the man says, with a glare at Steve that says he doesn’t trust Steve in the slightest. Steve can feel himself bristling: he never would’ve hurt Wanda.

The man turns and leaves without another word and a distinctly angry twist of his head, and the teapot swears under his breath and hops after him. Steve’s pretty sure that he’s not meant to hear what the teapot says, but his enhanced hearing can’t help but it up: a hissed, “C’mon, man, he could be _the one_ \- Buck, don’t make a bad first impression -!”

Steve blinks, and turns to Wanda, who is watching him again with an inscrutable expression. Once again, he has to wonder why she’s up here, what made her stay so long when she’d still had family in the valley below. If it hadn’t been the handiwork of the antlered man, what had it been?

“Can you go,” she says, “and put your hand outside that window, there?” She nods at a nearby window that’s been thrown open, wind whistling through. There’s a pile of leaf litter on the windowsill and the floor beneath the window, like it hasn’t been cleaned in a while.

“Why -?”

“It’s very important to me,” she says, and folds her arm and purses her lips as she stares him down.

“All - right,” Steve says, a little helplessly and feeling vaguely as though he wants to throw his hands up with frustration, right now. The occupants of the castle are not looking to be any more forthcoming than the occupants of the village below the castle.

He steps sideways towards the window Wanda had pointed out and stretches a hand outwards to reach it, not taking his eyes off her because he doesn’t trust her not to disappear on him if he turns his attention away from her. Something about the wary, distant way she holds herself makes the option seem eminently possible.

He’s not expecting anything unusual to come from sticking his hand out of a window, of all things. And to an extent, he’s right; nothing unusual does come from sticking his hand out of the window, but that’s because his hand never makes it past the window. It gets to the outer rim of the window frame and then stops short. Wanda spins away from him and - judging by the short, sharp tone of her voice - swears.

“What -?” he asks. He doesn’t think he’s done a thing but ask questions since he’d entered the castle.

“You just had to want to help us,” Wanda says, a bitter twist to her mouth. “Typical Captain America, huh?”

“You mean - wanting to help traps you here,” Steve says, not quite a question. Wanda shrugs, sighs. Her eyes are downturned and sad. Steve bangs on the barrier again, and it gives the impression of rippling slightly, light playing across it until it’s almost visible for a brief instant, and then gone again.

“Yes,” Wanda says, and sighs. “Let’s find you a bedroom.”

“A bedroom?” Steve asks, and then realises what she’s doing, how she’s setting him up for a life here. “Wait - no, I don’t want a bedroom!” he protests even as he follows her. “I need to leave, I can’t stay here -”

“That’s what _we_ said,” Wanda snaps, stopping so quickly that Steve nearly bumps into her. “The barrier doesn’t care.”

“We,” Steve repeats, briefly distracted. “Pietro’s here with you?” Wanda nods.

“He’s around here somewhere,” she says tightly. “Do you want a room or not?”

She doesn’t really bother waiting for an answer; just starts walking again, and expects Steve to follow. Which he does, as she’d probably expected, because he doesn’t really have many other options.

“So,” he says. He means to follow it up with a _care to tell me why we’re trapped in this castle?_ but the teapot chooses that moment to rejoin them, bouncing into Wanda’s hands with a large puff of steam.

“Hey, man,” he says, with remarkable cheerfulness for the situation, before Steve can regroup. “What brought you here?”

“SHIELD, uh, sensed magic in this area,” Steve says, choosing the simplest explanation.

“Aw, and they thought they’d check up on little old us,” the teapot says.

“Something like that,” Steve agrees. “Care to tell me why I’m trapped in here?” Wanda mutters something unidentifiable under her breath, and her steps speed up.

“Oh, man. That’s a long story,” the teapot says diplomatically. The flowers on his body spell out _TELL U LATER_ slowly and painstakingly. Steve and Wanda both snort.

They make good progress until they reach the main foyer where Steve had first come in, whereupon Wanda and Luis start arguing earnestly about whether they should put Steve in the North Corridor, which is the coldest and dampest because it’s where the castle’s engineers had tunneled into stone, the East Corridor, where waking up with the sun is basically a necessity because of the positioning of the windows, or the South Corridor, which has windows that constantly look out at a spectacular view that’s sort of ruined by the fact that they’re not allowed to go to it. Steve has slept in worse places, so he leaves them to it and wanders into the next room, where the previously-still furniture pieces are now very clearly not still.

“You’re the new guy!” a large black box says, so excitedly that his front latch swings open and a frankly terrifying number of knives come pouring out. “Oh my god, the new guy is Captain America! Guys! Why did none of you tell me this?”

“I did,” the mirror says. “I showed you.”

“You said he was _dressed_ like Captain America! That’s a _really different thing, Kurt_. Oh god.”

“Are these what’s been leaving knife marks all over the village?” Steve asks, pointing down at the pile of knives at his feet. He thinks one of them might be a battle axe.

“That’d be Hope,” Scott says. “She’s in there somewhere. I’m Scott.”

“Hi, Scott,” Steve says weakly.

Scott the safe does a small hop and cracks the floor on his way back down, initially gleeful, but then he grows serious as he asks, “Did you really throw your shield at Bucky just because he had horns?”

“Uh,” is all Steve manages to say before Luis, with either the best or the worst sense of timing, bursts in and starts shepherding Steve away with far too much force for something so relatively small. Wanda has disappeared, although whether that’s due to more magic or her simply moving away Steve couldn’t say.

The words stick with him, though, as he half-listens to Luis’s rambling explanations of why they’d thought the East Corridor was the best idea for now, although Steve could, of course, move to either of the other two corridors at will, except for the West Corridor, which it was probably a good idea for him to avoid for a while.

“What’s in the West Corridor?” he finds himself asking.

 

“Bucky,” Luis says. “Which, y’know, I know all about bad introductions, I’ve made a few in my day. There was this one time where I was introduced to two police officers after stealing two smoothie machines, and I’d say that’s just a little bit higher on the list than throwing your shield at someone because of their horns, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“It was less the horns and more the...yelling and running towards me,” Steve says. “Although the horns didn’t exactly _help_.”

“Hmm,” Luis says, judgemental. It’s not that hard to conclude that the horns feel like a sore point, even if Steve’s not exactly up to asking about it. He does have slightly more self-preservation than to go poking at the wounds of people he’s going to be stuck with for a while.

It bugs him, though, even as Luis shows him a surprisingly presentable room and talks through getting food and drinks.

“Before Wanda came along Bucky had to get his food from me,” Luis says. “I could do it, technically, but it all tasted like coffee. Coffee-soaked everything. Those were the days. Turns out coffee can season a lot of things.”

“But _should_ it,” Steve mutters. He’s heard of coffee-rubbed steak, but even amidst the bright and shiny confusion of this bright and shiny future, there are some things he knows to stay well enough away from, no matter how Clint cajoles or tries and fails to off-handedly mention the excellent properties of the coffee bean. Clint has demonstrated far too many times that he absolutely cannot be trusted with what to put in one’s mouth.

Luis cackles. “That’s exactly what Bucky said every time! Man, you guys are gonna get along great once he stops sulking.”

“How long does that take, usually?” Steve asks. Luis hems and haws and doesn’t give much of an answer, and Steve has never been good at waiting, so it’s really not entirely surprising that he barges past Luis and heads determinedly for the West Corridor.

“No! Don’t do that! He’s going to stab you,” Luis says desolately even as he tries his best to trip Steve up by winding around his ankles like a strange warm cat that occasionally spills coffee in its wake.

“I’m good at being stabbed,” Steve assures Luis. “I heal fast.” He turns the corner into what is presumably the West Corridor, because Luis stops and seems content just to peer around the stone, as though Bucky is really going to make Steve explode and he needs to avoid being in the zone of fire. It’s not a promising start, but Steve gathers his courage, listens to the stubbornness that tells him he can’t turn back now, and knocks on the closed door in front of him. The sound of his knuckles rapping against the wood rings through the corridor so loudly - three times - that it’s unimaginable for Bucky not to have heard them.

“What?” Bucky’s voice snaps from inside. It’s recognisable even when he hasn’t got the breath knocked out of him by the sharp end of a shield. Steve knows that the door will definitely not be answered if he says anything so he knocks again, three more times, sharp and loud. “Christ, I’m coming,” Bucky grumbles, and as soon as the door opens in front of him Steve sticks his foot in the crack. Bucky looks at him, at his foot, and back up at his face, and glares.

“I owe you an apology,” Steve says.

“You made one,” Bucky snaps, trying to push the door shut fruitlessly. The force pinches against Steve’s foot but he absolutely refuses to back away now. Besides, he’s not sure he could, what with the way the door is squeezing his foot tightly between it and the doorframe. “It wasn’t accepted, and it’ll _continue_ not to be accepted -”

“Luis was right,” Steve says, because if he’s going down Luis is too. Luis’s muffled swearing from the end of the corridor tells him the effort was appreciated. “Sure, you were shouting at me and running towards me and I was in an unfamiliar place, but maybe if you’d looked more human I wouldn’t have gone into offensive mode. So I made a judgement and it was wrong and I’m sorry.”

Bucky stares, mouth slightly open. The door comes a little loose, even, with the force of his surprise.

“And I hope you heard all that because I’m not saying it again,” Steve says, semi-confrontational because he’s wound up and tense and he doesn’t know when to quit. Bucky gapes at him some more, and then he _laughs _.__

__Steve relaxes; partly, this is because it was the ideal reaction and he was utterly relieved to have gotten it, but also partly, and he refuses to admit this even to himself, because Bucky’s laugh is lovely, and it makes him want to smile._ _

__“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky says, taking his hand off the door to offer it to Steve._ _

__“Steve Rogers,” Steve says, reciprocating by taking his foot out of the doorway and feeling absurdly gratified when the door doesn’t immediately slam shut in his face. Bucky’s eyes linger on their handshake, and Steve’s almost positive that he’s going to say something when they’re both distracted by the loud, telltale clinks of Luis bounding away as fast as he can._ _

__“Guys! Guys! It’s _happening_!” echoes back through the stone walls. Steve stares at Bucky, and in silence they mutually agree to pretend they hadn’t heard a thing, neither of them quite comfortable at the implications in Luis’s yelling._ _

__“Can you tell me why you’re - we’re,” he corrects himself, “trapped here? Nobody really seemed - comfortable, I guess, talking about it.”_ _

__“That’s -” Bucky pauses to consider this, and he doesn’t exactly invite Steve in but he does push the door a little further open as he moves away, which is nearly the same thing. “I was painted to be HYDRA’s Asset,” he says finally._ _

__“You were crafted?” Steve asks, unable to keep the excitement out of his tone. Crafting magic has always been rare because it was heavy on the craft and somewhat minimal on the magic, and involved two types of magic - one during the crafting and one in the rendering - to boot, in a world where specialisation was valued. Still, that hadn’t stopped Steve from loving the idea of being able to render his own drawings into reality, when he was laid up and coughing and lonely._ _

__“Sure, I was crafted,” Bucky says. “I gotta say, one line into this explanation and you’re already interrupting me -”_ _

__“Oh my god, stop, you’re an asshole,” Steve says, and he goes from suppressing laughter in one second to wincing in the next, because the insult had just - slipped out, affectionate but possibly toeing a line._ _

__Bucky just smiles crookedly at him. “Takes one to know one,” he says. “I guess you don’t want any explanation after all -”_ _

__“No, okay, I’m sorry,” Steve says, the mirth returning, his lips twitching up to mimic Bucky’s. “Please continue, I’ll keep my mouth shut.” He even makes the sarcastic mouth-zipping motion Tony does at him far too often, making Bucky snort._ _

__“Yeah, I was crafted,” Bucky repeats on a sigh. “And then there were some...errors in translation, and now I’m here.” He stretches his hands outwards and lifts an eyebrow at Steve. “Apparently I couldn’t be seen in human society.” One of his outstretched hands wanders upwards, touches his antlers briefly. Now that Steve’s stepped closer he can see them better, and there’s a strange kind of elegance in them, a gentle gradience in colour and a soft gleam that says they are well taken care of._ _

__“I don’t think that’s right,” Steve says quietly. “And I think you know that.”_ _

__Bucky gives him another grin, slightly crooked, teeth gleaming. “After spending this long in a castle I’d have to,” he says. “The other option is - what, sulking? But the point’s moot either way, since I’m, uh, in here for the foreseeable future.”_ _

__“How long?” Steve asks, a little hesitant. “How long have you been -?” He gestures around the room. Bucky eyes him shrewdly and sighs._ _

__“A good few years,” he says, but Steve’s not happy at that and it probably shows. Bucky sighs. “A few decades,” he grits out. “Nearly three.”_ _

__“ _Jesus_ ,” Steve says before he can clamp down on his reaction. That was a long fucking time. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “How have you tried getting out?” he asks, hopefully conveying genuine interest instead of being patronising. Bucky just rubs his hands over his eyes._ _

__“Hope - the knives - she dug through the wall in the top section of the tower and in one of the dungeon cells,” he says. “No dice. We’ve tried every door and window on every magically significant day, and -” He gestures. He’s quite clearly still in the castle._ _

__“I have - I’m a lot stronger than a normal person,” Steve offers quietly. “Quite a bit faster -”_ _

__“Don’t! That’s how -” Bucky snaps, and then shuts his mouth so sharply that the clicking of his teeth is audible._ _

__“That’s how what,” Steve says, not quite a question. Bucky rubs his face again, his fingers going up to press little circles into the base of his antlers._ _

__“That’s how Pietro got injured,” he mumbles at last. “Wanda can do magic, Pietro could run fast, faster than anyone you’ve ever seen. You _couldn’t_ see him, even. We thought it might work against the barriers.”_ _

__“And?” Steve asks, dreading the answer._ _

__“He’s - we think he could make a recovery,” Bucky says. “If we ever get out of this godforsaken place. Wanda’s put him to sleep for now. A coma. She doesn’t want to risk messing him up further.”_ _

__“ _God_ ,” Steve swears. It makes sense now, Wanda’s tight-lipped demeanour, the sadness in her eyes, the way she’d been so vague about her brother: _he’s around here somewhere_. Bucky’s turned away slightly but he hasn’t moved away, so Steve places a hand on his arm, as gentle as he can be. “My team will get us out,” he says. “They’ll be able to help Pietro, and you’ll be able to see. If society can deal with a souped-up supersoldier from the forties, they can deal with you.”_ _

__Bucky raises his eyebrows, not quite believing but not outright disbelieving, either. And that’s enough for now._ _

__~*~_ _

__Steve doesn’t realise what starts happening immediately after his arrival at the castle and, especially, his making up with Bucky. A pipe happens to burst directly into his room and necessitates his immediate move into a room that just so happens to be across the corridor from Bucky’s. Dinner is a dimly-lit affair accompanied by Luis’s off-tune humming that Wanda insists he and Bucky attend together because it’s more convenient for her to magic up all the food they’ll need in a single spell. Flowers start to appear in corners, vibrant and soft all at once. They make Bucky smile, a small gentle thing._ _

__Realisation only comes when Steve walks into the kitchen and hears Luis talking about the recipe they’re going to need for that night;, a fish-and-chili combination that would sound a lot more appealing if it hadn’t been prefaced with, “So today’s recipe for them is from...page 69 of _Romance Recipes_ \- shit, wait, are we really on page sixty-nine? We are, hah, that’s funny,” and a loud snort._ _

__“You’re immature,” Wanda says sternly, but she’s thankfully occupied enough with page sixty-nine that Steve can back out of the kitchen unnoticed._ _

__“Did you know the furniture is trying to set us up?” Steve demands, after hunting Bucky down. Bucky only blinks at him._ _

__“Yes?” he says. “Didn’t you?”_ _

__“No,” Steve mumbles. “Some master tactician I am.”_ _

__Bucky pats his shoulder comfortingly. “We all have our off...weeks.”_ _

__“Shut up,” Steve mutters lamely. “It’s barely even been a week. Can you tell me why they’re doing it, if you know so much?”_ _

__“Are you really asking me that right now?” Bucky asks, looking genuinely amused._ _

__“What?” Steve asks, slightly wary at the grin Bucky is giving him._ _

__“Just think about it,” Bucky says. “What acts as a cure-all against every curse? C’mon, even the forties knew this.”_ _

__“The...correct ingredients for a counter-curse?” Steve hazards, because he’s never been particularly knowledgeable about magic, and then the answer smacks him like a truck and he can feel his eyes widen and his voice pitch higher as he squawks, “ _True love_?”_ _

__He has no idea what his face looks like at that particular revelation, but Bucky cackles loudly, and it’s impossible to pretend that it’s at anything other than Steve._ _

__Steve exhales in one long, loud breath, and Bucky snorts again. “The correct ingredients for a counter-curse,” he repeats with a shake of his head, and pats Steve’s cheek. If heat rushes into Steve’s face, it’s clearly because he’s been so goddamn blind over the past _several_ days._ _

__“But - true love?” he says lamely._ _

__“I mean, we know it’s not working,” Bucky says, gesturing between him and Steve with a flippant hand, and Steve has to clamp his mouth shut before he says anything unwise. “But - it’s not like it isn’t worth trying, you know?”_ _

__“Sure,” Steve says, his tone much tighter than he would have liked. “Of course.” Just over a week isn’t enough to fall in love with someone, not even close, but it still stings a little to have the possibility dismissed just like that, out of hand._ _

__Logically, objectively, he knows that what the furniture is doing makes sense. The furniture had all once been human and the general experience of being a bookshelf or a teapot or a mirror is probably not as pleasant or fulfilling as being a human. Being stuck in a castle for years on end would be stifling and annoying and monotonous, and if the option comes along to return to human form and find a way to leave the castle, well, it’s only natural that they’d do everything they could to make those things happen. Subjectively, though - subjectively, it’s a pain in the neck and vaguely embarrassing to have been pushed, all this time and utterly obliviously, towards a completely uninterested party._ _

__It’s just - now that he’s noticed it, he can’t stop noticing it, is the thing. The way Scott will quietly, slowly skulk out of any room he and Bucky happen to be in. The way Luis will try to puff out atmospheric smoke from a corner of the room whenever he and Bucky have less than a metre between them. The way none of the lights seem to work properly and leave the castle in a state of candlelit semi-gloom that the furniture seems to think is romantic._ _

__“Should we...tell them that this isn’t working,” Steve offers awkwardly, when the furniture decides to take it a step further and lock them into a cupboard together. It’d be alarmingly close to a lie on his part, but that’s - nobody needs to know that._ _

__“Honestly, they’re hopeful but not that hopeful. I’m pretty sure they know it’s the longest shot,” Bucky says, trying to disentangle the hanging light from his antlers. “And they’re having so much _fun_. Wanda smiles every time something goes to plan, and that’s more than I’ve seen her do for - well, quite a while. Who am I to take that away from them?”_ _

__Steve snorts. “Can I get that for you?” he asks, gesturing at the increasingly tangled chain around Bucky’s antlers._ _

__“Be my guest, pal,” Bucky says, leaning forward just a little. Even that slightest of movements is enough to send the lightbulb shaking, throwing shadows and brightness around like he’s trying to turn the small storeroom into a kaleidoscope of light and shade._ _

__“Stop that,” Steve mumbles as he gets to work._ _

__“They catch on everything, I swear,” Bucky says, obligingly going very still. Steve moves it as delicately as possible, his fingers just barely brushing against Bucky’s antlers. Even so, he can’t help but feel the way they’re notched and grooved, the little imperfections his fingers bump against as he moves his hands._ _

__“You can be rougher,” Bucky says, glancing up at Steve from under his eyelashes. “I can’t feel anything up there right now.”_ _

__“Now?” Steve asks dubiously._ _

__“They fall off every now and again,” Bucky says. “Then they grow back in, and that’s when I feel it.”_ _

__“...Huh,” Steve says, for lack of a better response. He’d known that vaguely because it’d paid to know about the animals that could potentially feed you in countryside Europe. Somehow he hadn’t realised that’d translate to Bucky’s antlers._ _

__“There’s a pile of them in one of the rooms in the basement, I think,” Bucky says. “I’m sure we can find them if you want.”_ _

__“I think I’m fine,” Steve says hastily. The mere thought of going to look at a pile of Bucky’s disembodied bones makes him very uncomfortable. Bucky laughs like he knows exactly what’s going through Steve’s mind. Steve very carefully doesn’t let the sound make his hand slip._ _

__“Thanks,” Bucky says when Steve manages to get the wire out of the way._ _

__“How do you have electricity?” he asks, staring at the lightbulb._ _

__“We don’t,” Bucky says, point out several irreparably frayed and damaged areas in the wire that should make it impossible for any kind of electricity to go through it, no matter what the brightly shining bulb had to say for itself. “HYDRA was just lazy and had access to magic.”_ _

__“Hmm,” Steve mutters sceptically, and tries the door again. Of course it’s still locked; the furniture don’t do things by halves. “How much longer are we going to be stuck in here, do you think?”_ _

__“Longer every time we try to get out,” Bucky says, sliding down to settle himself carefully between a bucket and a cardboard box half-full of dust. Steve stares down at him for a second, and then sighs in resignation and follows his lead._ _

__~*~_ _

__It just escalates from there, because of course it does. Bedroom doors are locked (from the outside, of course), rose petals appearing in increasingly concerning places, a mysterious shortage of plates when it comes time to eat. Wanda telling them she is sick of conjuring up food for dinner and handing them a recipe to make instead, using ingredients she’s blithely conjured up._ _

__“Cook this,” she says, passing Bucky a handwritten page that is quite clearly copied word-for-word from _Romance Recipes_ , complete with terrible stomach-related idioms._ _

__“This is from _Romance Recipes_ ,” Bucky says, in a tone that is more idly curious as to how Wanda will get out of this one instead of confrontational._ _

__“How dare you,” Wanda says, folding her arms. “That is a family recipe. It’s very important to me.”_ _

__“Hmm,” Bucky says, and the two of them stare at each other for so long, with such determination, that it’s impossible to say whose lips start twitching first. They turn away from each other almost at the same moment, and a smile breaks out on Bucky’s face as he gestures Steve into the kitchen, at the same instant that Wanda ducks her head and grins._ _

__“C’mon, let’s give them a show,” Bucky says, laying the recipe on the bench and looking back to flutter his eyelashes at Steve. Luis hops up onto the counter and starts humming some terrible tune that probably passed for a love song in its day._ _

__“Is it working?” he breaks off halfway through his second uncalled-for encore._ _

__“No,” Steve and Bucky say in unison._ _

__“You guys are spoilsports,” Luis complains. “We wanna get out of here, you know that, right?”_ _

__“And, what, you think that an eighties power ballad is going to make us fall spontaneously in love?” Bucky asks._ _

__Luis lets an indignant _phhhhh_ noise out of his spout. “Man,” he says, “there’s no need to rub in the fact that I can’t hum a hundred notes at once. You _know_ I’m a Baroque guy.”_ _

__“I’m sorry, Baroque guy,” Bucky says. “You think Toccata and Fugue is going to make us fall spontaneously in love -?”_ _

__“I’m _saying_ that the _Paris Quartets_ ,” he says pointedly, “might be enough to, like, briefly render the both of you into better states of mind, which then, y’know might turn out to be enough to break the spell…”_ _

__There’s a pause in the kitchen as they all try to digest this statement._ _

__“I know,” Luis says before anyone can say anything, and puffs a few smoke rings into the ceiling to show how much, exactly, he knows. “It’s worth a _try_.”_ _

__“Sure it is,” Bucky says, and promptly sweeps Steve into a terrifying three-step waltz that has Luis screeching in indignation and shouting, “You don’t dance to _baroque_ , you fucking heathens!”_ _

__~*~_ _

__Which - well. That was the problem with Bucky, Steve decided. Bucky was far too willing to go along with the furniture’s plans, to cook a supposedly romantic recipe with Steve, to dance with him, to throw rose petals at him. And it wouldn’t be such a problem if Bucky wasn’t so entirely unaffected by it all. He could be pressed close to Steve one instant and halfway around the room in the next, and all the while Steve’s foolish heart _had_ been tricked by the flowers and the baroque and their constant proximity. Bucky was the closest thing that Steve could get to shared life experience, probably, with the ridiculous crafting magic on par with Steve’s own transformation. With all those years of isolation, of being able to do nothing, of staring into the world with a mirror._ _

__Steve’s going to give his teammates hell for taking so long when they finally show up._ _

__~*~_ _

__They don’t show up, is the thing._ _

__~*~_ _

__Steve doesn’t think he loses faith easily, especially in people that he trusts. And he is positive that the Avengers are doing what they can to find him, but the fact of the matter is that days turn into weeks turn into a month and then two months. The furniture lock him in six different rooms with Bucky, their tasteful flower petals multiply into multitudes tossed everywhere as spring heads into summer, and there’s no sign of the barrier weakening. The barrier has been in place for thirty years, and Steve thinks he finally understands the gravity of that, the sheer strength and stamina of it. It’s easy for him to discount seventy years when he’d spent it unconscious and frozen, but - well, it’s worth pointing out that he hadn’t even reached thirty before the ice. Thirty years is a long fucking time._ _

__He’s not sure when he goes from knowing his team are going to break the door down to knowing his team are doing their best, but the realisation hits him like a truck. Especially after he discovers that Kurt the mirror is capable of showing anyone in the world _except_ the Avengers._ _

__“ _Why_?” he’d asked, upon finding this out, in what was not quite a wail._ _

__“I tried once already,” Kurt had said, his accent growing thicker with indignation and defensiveness. “I was noticed in five seconds and now I cannot look at anything inside that building.” Steve had thrown his hands up and kept his mouth shut and left._ _

__He’s never been a good actor, and he’s upset; there’s no hiding that. Of course Bucky doesn’t miss it, and Steve has to deal with those bright concerned eyes on him all week. It’s only to be expected that he cracks._ _

__“I don’t know if my team are coming,” he confesses all at once, after Bucky has pointedly not roused him for breakfast and brought him food instead. From the slightly blackened edges he looks to have made it himself, and Steve’s not quite sure what to think of that._ _

__“You’ve been so certain,” Bucky says, raising his eyebrows slightly, but his resigned tone is at odds with his words. He leans back against Steve’s thigh, just gently, so that the warmth of his body can register as some sort of comfort._ _

__“I know,” Steve says, and to his credit he doesn’t think he sounds as wretched as he feels. “I know. But -”_ _

__“Spells are tricky things,” Bucky says gently. The library had been one of the places the furniture had locked Steve and Bucky into, and piles of stolen books - mostly on the subject on witchcraft - had been everywhere. Steve had read some of them, even seen the dire advice they had to offer on curses (“wait it out,” tended to be the first course of advice) but discounted it: this wasn’t a curse, it was just a strangely strong barrier spell. It was hard to figure out magic at the best of times, harder yet to figure out magic done out of desperation or malice, and hardest of all to figure out how to undo something you hadn’t witnessed being done._ _

__“I’m learning that, I think,” Steve says blankly. He’s taken for granted the wonderful simplicity of the spell that’d been cast on him._ _

__Bucky stays quiet for a moment longer, and then he moves away and says, “So which room do you want to move to?” It’s such a non-sequitur that for a moment Steve doesn’t even register what he’s talking about._ _

__“What?”_ _

__“Which room -”_ _

__“Why are you assuming I want to move rooms?” Steve asks, utterly confused. Bucky stares at him._ _

__“Because I...have you stuck here? In the castle?” he says, and it’s possibly the most ruffled that Steve’s ever seen him, the most concerned._ _

__“ _You_ have me stuck here?” Steve asks. “Is there something you’re not telling me, or -?”_ _

__“ _No_ , I just - I -”_ _

__“It’s _not your fault_ ,” Steve says fiercely, and forgets himself completely, reaches out to cradle Bucky’s face in his hands. “Is that what you think?” he asks. “Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time?”_ _

__“I,” Bucky says weakly. Steve realises that he is still touching Bucky’s face, and snatches his hands away hastily. Bucky almost seems to sway forward, at that. “Well, not necessarily,” he says, upon regathering his thoughts. “It’s just that...you’re entitled to some time to wallow and blame everyone. And I’m a pretty good target, y’know, being the reason the barrier’s here, and all. I’m not saying I’m the right target,” he says in response to Steve’s glare. “I’m just saying I’m a good one to use while you work out your anger.” He sounds like he’s speaking from experience, and - well, Steve gets that. He wishes he could be angry at Wanda and Pietro, but he’s not, especially with Bucky so at peace with it. But still -_ _

__“I wouldn’t do that,” Steve says fiercely, determinedly. “I won’t.” He refuses to. Blame is the last thing Bucky deserves. Bucky stares at him for a long time, at that, mouth shut and expression disbelieving. Steve can’t help but slide closer to him. “Did you really think I would?” he asks, quiet. That thought - that Bucky had been waiting to be the target of Steve’s anger, that he’d, expected Steve to lash out or use him as some kind of punching bag - that hurts._ _

__Bucky just shakes his head, disbelieving. “You’re unbelievable sometimes, Rogers,” he says on an exhale, and leans forward to tuck his head onto Steve’s shoulder, leaving Steve to twist his own head to avoid being stabbed in the eye. Eventually he finds himself hooking his chin in between two tines and half-resting it there, and then he can relax into Bucky’s embrace, the warmth that gathers rapidly between them. He can feel Bucky’s heartbeat, he observes almost dreamily. His painting with a heartbeat._ _

__None of the furniture is around them; they’re still polite enough to stay out of bedrooms while they’re occupied, at least, even if they have taken liberties with rose petals while Steve happens to be away. Maybe that’s what gives Steve the courage to do what he does when Bucky finally pulls his head away, when he looks up and at Steve with remnants of that heartbreaking uncertainty still lingering in his wide eyes._ _

__Steve kisses him. Of course he does. It feels like the moment couldn’t have ended any other way._ _

__“You - really?” Bucky says, almost squeaks, when Steve pulls back. Steve can’t respond for a second, again, it’s so shocking._ _

__“You,” he manages, after a few wide-eyed, slack-jawed seconds. “I thought _you_ -” _Didn’t want me_ , hangs in the air between them, and Bucky bites his lip, shakes his head._ _

__“How could I not?” he asks. “But I - I just thought we were going to have to - I -” Bucky stutters out, and Steve understands and his heart hurts more with what Bucky had been holding back in anticipation of Steve’s anger._ _

__“I _would not have done that_ , you’re an _idiot_ ,” he says, firm, and kisses Bucky for good measure._ _

__“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” Bucky says when he can breathe again, in a tone that is much fonder than the words would imply. When Steve tugs at him he tumbles into bed willingly, laughingly, his antlers nearly stabbing Steve again and their plates crashing to the floor, forgotten._ _


	3. Chapter 3

There’s a loud knock at the bedroom door, and Bucky almost yells at the intruder to shut up before he realises that his shouting is even more likely to wake Steve up as the thunderous knocking at the door. He sighs instead, and drags the cover over his and Steve’s heads in the hopes that their interloper will just fucking leave.

“Bucky!” Luis’s voice shouts through the closed door. Bucky buries his head further in the bed. Of course it’s Luis. Luis who is the least likely of all the furniture to give up and go away. “Bucky!” Luis yells again, much louder this time and - less muffled? He’s not in the room. Surely he’s not in the room, Bucky thinks frantically.

The next thing he knows is the sheets being tugged out of his panic-clumsy hands. Luis is...definitely in the room, then, is all Bucky’s completely blank brain can think of.

“Oh my God!” Luis yells, as Bucky regains some of his senses and tugs the sheets back up. “Oh my _God_! Bucky! You _did that_!”

“Shut _up_ , you’re going to wake him -” Bucky snarls as he finally comes to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to get out of bed, He yanks his face out of the pillow, more than ready to throw Luis bodily out of the room, but freezes at the sight in front of him: a small Latino man with a patchy goatee and a snapback - where the fuck had he gotten a snapback? - facing the door and covering his eyes as he yells excitedly with Luis’s voice.

“- did some experimenting in college and I’m happy for you and all but that is _seriously_ more than I ever want to see of my friends, Buck -”

“What the FUCK,” Bucky yells, slamming himself bolt upright.

“‘M awake,” Steve mutters.

“Dude, that’s what I’m trying to say! It’s been like most of the day, we really thought you guys should know about this development.”

“Who are you!” Bucky demands, because his brain is having a hard time reconciling what he knows with what he’s seeing. “What have you done to Luis!”

“Don’t you recognise me, dude?” Luis says, spreading his free hand expansively and nearly hitting the door. “C’mon, don’t insult me, we’ve spent years together!”

“I’m going to pour decaf in you,” Bucky says dumbly. It is his favourite threat to make, and it no longer makes any sense, because Luis is _human_.

“It takes an adjustment period,” Luis says wisely. “‘Specially after having your brains fucked out, or fucking your brains out, or both, if y’know what I mean.” He winks. “I get it. Don’t worry.”

Steve turns over and blinks.

“You’re human,” he says dumbly, which is a far better reaction than Bucky had had.

“ _And_ we can leave the castle!” Luis says. “Pietro’s in a hospital and he said words to us! Specifically ‘That was dumb as shit,’ which is classic Pietro.” He sighs happily.

“Oh my god,” Bucky says, his voice suspiciously choked up.

“Man, we all owe you one for, uh, whatever it was that happened in here. You did us a solid.”

“Hhhhhh,” Bucky says. Luis winks one more time and slides towards Bucky, hand outstretched and face still turned away.

“Cleanest hand, man, just do it with the cleanest one,” he says.

“That’s disgusting,” Bucky mutters, but when Luis starts wiggling his hand insistently he gives in and smacks it.

“Hell yeah. Geddit, Buck!” Luis says as he closes the door behind him again with a jaunty wave.

Bucky flops back down onto his pillow and stares at the ceiling.

“So we’re...free,” Steve says. Bucky turns to look at him.

“Sure,” he says. “Your team must’ve worked something out remotely.” The notion of true love, that’s enough to scare him. Steve just smiles and reaches out to intertwine their fingers.

“Sure,” he parrots back. “You wanna go for a proper date back in New York?”

Bucky stares at him again, and Steve just looks back, impossibly soft and sweet and dear to Bucky already.

“You sayin’ this wasn’t a proper date?” he asks in response, and Steve’s grin gets wider.

“It won’t be ‘til we go outside and stare at the sky,” he says, already getting up and tossing clothes at Bucky.

“What,” Bucky complains, even as he gets up and starts putting them on.

“I wanna see your face when you go properly outside and you can’t blame me,” Steve says, and tries to duck out the goddamn window because he’s not patient enough to walk to the door like a normal fucking person.

“We’re on the second floor, you asshole!” Bucky protests. Steve groans, put-upon, but he consents to finding the nearest flight of stairs and going back down to ground level to find a window instead of trying to break his goddamn neck. When Steve slides through opening of the first window they find on the appropriate floor Bucky can’t help but hold his breath, but he goes through like it’s nothing. And then _Bucky_ goes through like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t just spent years being unable to get out. He flinches as his face gets to where the barrier had been, but there’s no force against him, only the gentle drag of his antlers as they refuse to cooperate with the shape and size of the window, as usual. Steve directs him into untangling himself gently, as usual.

The wind is the first thing that hits him, gentle and breezy today. He’s stood at the windows before for that fresh tide of air, has let himself close his eyes and breathe it in, but to be surrounded by it, without walls in front of him, it’s utterly new. It’s breathtaking. He closes his eyes and lets himself breathe, lets Steve tug him to wherever Steve wants to go.

It’s almost enough just to stand where he is, eyes closed, but of course he wants to open his eyes, too. He’s greedy for more experience, gluttonous with it, and when he finally does open his eyes the first thing he sees - the _only_ thing he sees - is green. It’s summer enough for the entire place to be verdant, for the sky to be blue, and the castle grounds are wild and overgrown with years of neglect.

He’s standing on grass, he realises while he’s trying to absorb everything at once, everything he never thought he’d have. His toes curl and dig into the soft blades, into the porous dirt below them. It’s the strangest, sweetest sensation. His toes come out dark brown, and the surge of delight he feels at that, the rush of warmth in his cheeks, is indescribable. Steve makes a sound and Bucky slides him a look, makes an inquisitive noise.

“You’re beautiful like this, is all,” Steve says. He’s still holding Bucky’s hand, letting his fingers be gripped tight, being an solid steady anchor.

“I love it out here,” Bucky says. “I love it.” _I love you_ , he doesn’t say, but Steve is disgustingly confident in his status in Bucky’s mind, and he grins like he can hear it, eyes crinkling with it.

“I was serious about that second date, you know,” he says.

“Fuck you,” Bucky says, and wraps his arms around Steve’s neck, lets himself be held in return. “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> find both of us on tumblr wailing about things, probably: [layersofsilence](https://layersofsilences.tumblr.com) and [littleblackfox](https://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com)


End file.
